


Love! In the Zombie Apocalypse

by Emi1y_Rose



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: 7 days to die au, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-08 12:09:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10386339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emi1y_Rose/pseuds/Emi1y_Rose
Summary: The zombie apocalypse started on a Tuesday and no one was ready for it. This story follows the trials of six men trying to live through each zombie-filled day as it happens.As it turns out, surviving in the zombie apocalypse is hard.





	1. Geoff

The world was, for a short moment, quiet. Everything was dark and quiet and there was nothing to be scared of. This was a relief, a stark contrast to the ever-present fear that permeated everyday life. But at the moment, there was nothing, and nothing was blissful. There were no pains of hunger. No throbbing pain from a cut or two or twelve. For a moment the silence was cushioning and warm and friendly. A slight scratching noise interrupted the peace, and for a second Geoff felt the urge to move.

But the darkness was still, calm, and comfortable, and he couldn’t bring himself to move any more. The area around his eyes felt heavy, and even a niggling thought in the back of his brain couldn’t bring him to open his eyes. It was okay. It would be okay. The world would keep spinning without him opening his eyes.

A slow thought rolled into his head. _Get up, idiot_. But there was no alarm clock to force him out of his relaxed state, and no real need as far as his body could tell. It was still soft and warm, but there was that annoying thought acting sharp and cold in his psyche.

He was so fucking lucky that there was only one.

The door crashed inward and Geoff bolted up, a hand on his gun and his vision going blurry from standing up to quickly. A zombie – a sort of teenage girl with tight jeans and a torn crop top, her skin grey-green – staggered in to the home before zoning in on Geoff. Geoff had very little time to react. There was a moment to raise his gun to a point where he could check his sight lines and fire. Geoff fired one bullet into the zombie’s eye and she was down. Geoff felt himself finally breathe in relief, since his aim wasn’t always so reliable.

“Does a locked door not mean shit anymore?” Geoff shouted, glancing at the area the zombie had come from. He frowned the patchwork job he’d done earlier, when he’d piled couches and an entertainment system from within the house over a hole. With its rough edges and scratch marks, it had obviously been carved out by zombies. But, as evidenced from his uninvited guest, he hadn’t done a good enough job – the couch was shifted slightly, and there was a gap big enough to fit a smaller zombie. But judging from the noises outside, he’d been noticed by more than just this girl, and more zombies would be coming soon.

Geoff reloaded his gun, checking his bag to ensure that he had as few bullets as he thought he did. _8, 9, 10, 11_. He swore, checked one more time, and still came up with less than a dozen. For a brief instant, he wished that he could dig the bullet out of the cold body in front of him before shuddering at the thought. Besides, he thought as he stepped gingerly over the corpse, he didn’t have any new casings for the bullet and therefor it would only be a pellet of lead to possibly throw at something, not anything he could use to reload. It wasn’t like the whole bullet was still lodged in the skull. Thankfully, he had ten other bullets in his now-full clip, but it was still far too low a number to have in the world he lived in now. He’d have to see if there was a gun store around that hadn’t been looted (fat chance) or risk breaking into a few houses to find more handgun ammunition.

The thought made him laugh darkly, more annoyed than anything. He’d have to make sure this next batch fit. Surprisingly, unlike in video games, not all handgun ammo was labeled as such, with bright red text over the front declaring the gun it was for. Not all handgun ammo fit each handgun, either. Geoff had been shocked to realize this, since he’d only really gone shooting with his step-dad before once or twice, where the ammunition was provided and the targets were paper stapled to some particle board. So, when he’d broken into a gun shop and picked his way through bullets that had fallen out of bins or something from careless looters in the past, he’d just grabbed ones that looked similar to his own. It had almost cost him his life when he tried to reload and the bullets wouldn’t fucking fit in the clip. Geoff still had a dirty bandage wrapped around his arm from that day – he’d gotten a huge cut from breaking his way through a window to escape.

Speaking of which, he needed to leave and bandage up again. Emphasis on the leave. The noise from his gun would definitely attract more zombies to his area, even more than were just outside, and he wasn’t about to wait and find out when they’d show up. Alone, zombies could be handled, but in a group, they were often deadly. Shame, Geoff had really started to like the little area he was hiding out in, but if one zombie could find him, a horde was probably nearby. His little home was a pleasant temperature all day, and the previous owner had left plenty of canned food behind, indicating that it had maybe been a vacation home, or maybe a hunting lounge. Not all the food would fit in his pack, though. Fuck him, food was the best thing that he had left that he could trade. Everything else he needed. He needed food, too, he supposed, but it was easier to have surplus of food than, say, bullets.

He definitely needed more bullets.

Geoff walked over to the cabinet he’d been storing all the cans of food in and started to throw some into his pack, careful to incorporate both vegetables and meats. His first few weeks in he’d figured that he really needed meats and other heavy protein sources alone, and would discard things like the canned corn he was currently packing into his bag. After a while, Geoff realized just how thirsty the food made him, and with bottled water being a luxury, he cracked open a can just to drink the water in which the vegetable juices were preserved. Realizing that the vegetables had absorbed some of the water as well, he quickly had eaten those, making it one of the best meals he’d eaten since the zombie apocalypse started. Picky people were not rewarded in this world.

Geoff could hear moans from outside and froze, mentally swearing and hoping that there weren’t that many zombies. As long as it wasn’t nighttime, they weren’t incredibly fast, but he still didn’t want to have to confront any if he could avoid it. _Put the cans in the bag, Geoffrey_ , he told himself, forcing his hands to move through the fear. After stuffing the pack, a few cans were still left over, and he grabbed an extra one to hold, figuring it would slip pretty easily into his sweatshirt pocket. He grabbed the second backpack he had, which stored a sleeping bag and change of clothes – both were filthy, only run through a stream a few times in the past month or two, but it was better than nothing. He slipped out the back door as he head a crash from the front, and breathed a sigh of relief as he crept further into the forest. Geoff kept one hand on his gun, and the other held the clothing bag as his eyes scanned the forest for the possibility of danger.

Nothing appeared, and the house was decently in the distance after a while, so he took a moment to open up one of his bags and pull out the last piece of bandage that he had. First aid was another thing he needed to find, he thought as he peeled his sweatshirt off. Gingerly, he removed the soiled bandage, hissing as the wound came into view and parts of the cloth clung to his arm. Red and angry, with parts of a scab forming, Geoff wondered if it was worth it to use another alcohol wipe to make sure the area was clean. Deciding it wouldn’t be a terrible idea, he unzipped what he had dubbed his “soft pack,” which, as its name suggested, held all the soft things he had, like a rolled up sleeping bag and a change of clothes. However, after he searched for pack for a minute, he remembered that he’d used the last wipe on his injury a few days ago.

“Shit,” he said before wrapping the cotton around his arm, making sure the wound was as clean as possible. He needed more first aid. Actually, it would be laughable, at this point, to make a sort of grocery list of things he needed: more bullets, more water, more food, more medicine, permanent shelter, maybe even a human to talk to. Geoff missed talking to people who weren’t himself or zombies trying to kill him. (Those conversations tended to be extremely one-sided, and most of the time the only phrase he’d yell was “Die, you motherfucker!”) But, more importantly, he missed having the security of knowing he’d probably live through the next day. Geoff had always had bags under his eyes, even before Armageddon, but this was a whole new level of exhausted that permeated through his entire body. Every time he glanced into a mirror or a particularly reflective puddle, even his beard looked tired. In short, he looked like someone who was trying to survive hell. The characters that he’d seen on _The Walking Dead_ looked much better, he assumed that was probably because that was the fake end of the world, rather than the real one. It made him wonder if people who acted on that show had gotten some sort of head-start on this nightmare.

Geoff shook his head to clear his thoughts.  Securing the bandage by tying a knot, he zipped up the pack and started walking once again. He heard the distant rustling of some bushes, but it was too small to even be a crawler, so he assumed it must be a squirrel or rabbit or something along those lines. It gave him time to wonder how he’d managed to almost sleep through a zombie attack.

Exhaustion was the primary reason, he knew. Traveling for days with intermittent hours of sleep were not the best conditions for human health, but at the same time sleeping could lead to death nowadays. In fact, it almost had just a few minutes ago, and it would be a shame to die after surviving for three-ish months. (Or so he thought. After the first few weeks, the sense of time had sort of blended together, into “daytime is safer, but not safe” and “nighttime is dangerous.” It stopped mattering after a while, if he was being honest.) He’d simply fallen asleep sitting with his back against the cabinets, and he hadn’t wanted to wake up even though he knew that he Geoff continued along at a brisk pace, still jumping whenever he heard something move, until he made it to a road with some sort of snowy area just over a hill.

Whatever had changed the people into zombies had completely altered the weather, too. Geoff supposed he should have paid more attention to the meteorology reports the few weeks before the outbreak really started, but the new _Halo_ game had just come out, and he was far more interested in playing that with his friends – an idea which now made him long for his past, but nostalgia was a luxury he only allowed himself in the fragile moments before he fell asleep. Regardless of his ignorance before the apocalypse, the new weather systems made no sense, as far as he could tell. A few miles north of him was a desert area, if he remembered correctly, and somewhere around here was a variation of his forest area but with fog that made him cough and feel sick to his stomach. He made sure to avoid fog altogether since that incident, even when it wasn’t suspiciously colored.

So, he wasn’t too surprised to see a tundra in front of him when he had just walked out of a forest that still had green leaves on every tree, and he almost decided to turn back down the hill, towards his now-abandoned cabin. Geoff certainly wasn’t dressed to go for a trek through acres of snow. But, he realized with some hesitation, that might have been the thoughts of others before him. A harder-to-reach area in a harsher climate might make for unlooted (was unlooted a word?) buildings. Places might be sitting there untouched, with medicine and food and, if he was lucky, bullets.

Geoff checked his watch and the sun in the sky. There was plenty of time for him to go in and raid some stores and still get back out to find a home to hunker down in for the night. And there were probably places that were warm enough in the snow, anyway. Eskimos did it, didn’t they? Geoff could do it for one night, probably. With that decided, he started to climb up the hill towards the snow area, following the road to ensure he didn’t get bogged down by too much snow.

Almost as soon as he’d crested the hill, an icy blast hit his face, causing a burning sensation and forcing his eyes to close. He almost turned around, back into the relative warmth of the forest, but the idea of a grocery store or finding ammunition was far more tempting than the warmth. Besides, he thought, he could stand for this. It would be okay. _Think warm thoughts_ he instructed himself.

Geoff had, unfortunately, miscalculated his tolerance for the cold. He’d grown up in Alabama before moving to Texas, and therefore had no real indication of how cold it could get when snow and ice whipped around and stuck to his face. Within a few minutes he already regretted the decision and stuffed his hands inside his sweatshirt pocket, fiddling around with the can of tomatoes he’d tossed in there earlier. At this point, though, he was even more convinced that any building he found would be safe from people looking to loot, and could find _something_ to make this bitter freeze worth his while.

So he walked on, making sure that he was staying on the road so that he would be able to easily find his way back. About five minutes in, five minutes of shivering and swearing at the fact that the world could get so cold, he spotted what appeared to be a traffic jam. Six or seven cars were piled up in the middle of the road, some of them bent and broken, all blocking the way. Immediately Geoff was on guard. The area was pretty flat, and he wasn’t sure how well zombies do in the cold, but this would be the perfect place for him to be surprised by an attack and have to bleed out in the cold. Geoff was tempted, though, to investigate the vehicles. Theoretically, one could still have the keys, and a vehicle in this world would be a godsend. Also theoretically, but much more unlikely, he could remember how to hotwire a car from a YouTube video he’d seen a couple years ago. Either way, it wouldn’t hurt to check the cars.

Geoff carefully knelt down to look under the cars for any evidence of a crawling zombie, or some new mutated animal. He’d heard that dogs could be turned, and were far more dangerous than a normal zombie. With his luck he’d be attacked by a zombie chipmunk lurking in the snow. But, as far as he could tell, there was nothing under the cars. He started to stand up when he noticed a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.

Instantly he raised his gun and turned towards the sight, but he found himself staring at a car. A blue Honda, he thought – a small car, one that was less crushed than some of the others.

“Geoff, you’re fucking going nuts,” he muttered to himself before walking up to a red truck. He’d want the extra height and area to store things, he reasoned. He went to go pull open the driver’s side door when he saw the movement again.

 _There’s something moving in one of the cars,_ Geoff realized with a jolt. The blue Honda on the far side from him shakes for a second before going still again.

Geoff paused for a moment before clicking the safety back on his gun. If it were a zombie, it would have been pressed against the glass, trying to escape, he thinks. He’s seen it happen in houses before, where they just press up against the closest surface to a human and try to get through. Zombies, thankfully, were not that smart. The world would be even more dangerous than it was now, if the zombies could outwit them. It also had to be something that’d been put in the car pretty recently, since unless there was food in there, the moving thing would have starved. He was pretty sure even zombies could starve, so someone had to be in there.

Geoff dropped his soft backpack in order to grip the gun with two hands, carefully edging his way to the car. As soon as he could get a hold on the handle of the door, he took a deep breath, counted to three, and opened the door, gun coming up to point at the mass that had made the movement. A split second later, his hand fell to his side as he scanned the scene.

A human – tan skin and what looked like dirty blond hair, emphasis on the dirty – was lying on his stomach in the backseat. His arms and legs were hogtied with what appeared to be duct tape. Dried blood clumped around the tape. Whoever had done this obviously wanted to inflict pain on the person. Another strip of duct tape covered the man’s mouth. Eyes met his in fear as the body tried to struggle away from Geoff.

“The fuck?” Geoff growled, taking in more. The kid  had no clothes on, either, save for a pair of boxers. Goosebumps covered his skin and the tips of his fingers were blue, and he seemed to be shivering uncontrollably, his eyes flicking from Geoff’s face to his gun and back. He also had a disproportionally large nose and bright bluish-green eyes, but that was probably besides the point.

Zombies had definitely not done this. It’d been so long without talking to anyone that Geoff had forgotten that humans could be just as vicious.

“I’m not… I’m not gonna hurt you,” Geoff said slowly, placing the gun back into his pocket and putting his hands up, ready to placate. “Can I take the tape off?”

Still shivering, the man nodded and bents his neck up to allow access for Geoff’s fingers. They found a loose corner of the tape and pulled until it came free, pulling at the person’s slight beard, and then words spilled out of the his mouth.

“P-Please don’t hurt me, oh my god, I’ll give you whatever you want!” he cried out. Geoff paused as he realized that the man had an accent – he was either Australian or British, he could never tell the difference.

“Dude, I said I’m not going to hurt you,” Geoff repeated, reaching into the side of his backpack to grab his knife. The guy went quiet again as Geoff reached over to cut through the tape connecting the two appendages. “My name is Geoff. What’s yours?”

“Gavin,” Gavin replied, a particularly violent shiver making him stutter through his own name.

"Hey, Gavin.” Geoff pulled back out of the car to grab his soft pack when Gavin grabbed at his arm, eyes wide and focused beyond Geoff’s shoulder. Startled, Geoff jerked his hand back, only for Gavin to grab on harder and try to tug Geoff into the car. “Hey, let me go, I’m going to get clothes for you.”

Gavin pulled Geoff in and shouted just in time for Geoff to turn around and see a huge zombie, clad in overalls, swing at where Geoff’s head had just been. Without thinking, Geoff turned and fired. The recoil echoed in the small car and Geoff felt his ears ringing, but the zombie seemed unfazed until Geoff shot again. The zombie stumbled but didn’t drop, and with two more headshots Geoff realized that he couldn’t waste more bullets.

Geoff shoved Gavin across the seat and opened the other car door, stepping out into the wind. Gavin clung to Geoff’s chest as soon as they were out, still shivering in just his underwear. “We need to get my other pack,” Geoff shouted over the wind and the groans of the zombie. “Do you have shit anywhere?” Gavin shook his head and Geoff swore – of course he’d run into the one person in this mess that didn’t have any survival gear. “We can go somewhere warm as soon as we get my pack!”

Gavin nodded, and Geoff pried him off to figure out where the zombie was rambling. If he could get the zombie down, he knew he could decapitate it to remove any threat, but this thing was built like a tank and using any more bullets seemed like it would be a waste. So, it was time to outrun the thing.

Before the apocalypse, Geoff hadn’t particularly cared about exercise, and his body had shown it in the curvature of his stomach and lack of definition in his arms or legs. Now was entirely different, and he was pretty sure he could deadlift old Geoff with his new muscles. All of his body fat had burned away due to hunger and constantly running, and he knew his hair and beard were a mess from when he found mirrors to peek into. That didn’t mean he was particularly fast, but then again, zombies were not particularly fast either, so it was okay to dart around the zombie to grab his pack.

Only the zombie did not turn and track Geoff to his bag. It continued to shamble towards Gavin, who was frozen in both temperature and fear.

“Gavin!” Geoff shouted, and the man just stood there shivering. “Fuck, move, you idiot!” Still nothing happened, and damn it, Geoff was not about to lose the only vaguely friendly face he’d met in this entire mess. That would probably make him as bad as the zombies. His gun was useless – if he missed and hit Gavin, the zombie would probably be the slower way to die. Geoff looked around the car crash hurriedly, seeing nothing useful.

Fuck, he needed to act now! He ran a hand through his hair, panicked, only to reach into his sweatshirt pocket and feel the can of tomatoes he’d stored there.

“Hey, asshole! Catch!” Geoff chucked the can into the zombie’s back with a solid thud.

 _That_ got the bastard’s attention. It turned away from Gavin and lumbered back. Geoff carefully led the zombie away from his frozen companion, pulling it away until he could jump over the car, getting back to Gavin before the zombie could react. “Can you walk?”

Gavin stared back at Geoff dumbly. Heaving a sigh, Geoff scooped the man up and Gavin gave out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a squawk. “Hold the pack.”

“Can do,” Gavin replied, finally speaking English.

Speaking of which… “Are you British or Australian?” It seemed strangely important to ask.

Gavin scoffed. “God, British.” He was still shivering, so his voice was wavering, but Geoff didn’t have the time to fish anything out of his backpack. Geoff just wanted to put as much distance away from that zombie and the two of them as possible.

But as it turned out, walking back to the forest was harder when you were carrying a body, especially in the snow, and would definitely take longer than the non-body-carrying version. Geoff was going to need Gavin to walk pretty soon, but since the guy was barefooted it seemed cruel. And yet, Geoff weighed quickly, they weren’t getting out of here quickly if Gavin needed to be carried, and the lumberjack zombie seemed determined to follow them, albeit in a roundabout route. It seemed making its way around the cars by banging into metal until it was past the vehicle, not unlike a video game character. The two of them were making okay time, putting distance between the zombie, but there was no way they were going to get him off their asses at this pace. Zombies would give up after a while, which was why the zombies from the cabin in the forest weren’t still chasing him, but they needed to break the vision first. And that, Geoff concluded, was why he needed to get Gavin to a point where he could at least carry some of his own weight.

“Gavin, open the pack,” Geoff commanded, coming to a conclusion. “Biggest pocket. There should be a sweatshirt in there.”

With shaky fingers, Gavin unzipped the pack, pulling out the large black zip-up and squirming to put it on, causing Geoff to almost drop him. “Fucking careful!”

“Sorry, sorry, my bad.”

“There should be jeans, too. But I’m going to put you down and you’re gonna pull those on, and you’re going to have to run with me.” Gavin shot Geoff a look – somehow combining fear, anxiety, and “are you serious?” all into one glance. It would be impressive if it wasn’t going to get them killed. “Don’t give me that look. Come on. Be fast.”

With that, he gently let Gavin back down into the snow, pulling his gun back out to hold out towards the zombie. It was still some ways back, not an immediate danger at the moment, so he stood and held his breath as Gavin tugged the jeans on. They were too big, and dirty, but getting anything on Gavin was a priority. They also had the benefit of being slightly too long, and Gavin could step on the legs and not be stepping directly on the snow.

“All set?” Geoff asked, glancing away from the zombie for a second. When Gavin nodded, Geoff returned the gesture. “All right. Let’s get a move on. I’ve got food and shit when we get safe.”

Geoff left the tundra with no more supplies, four fewer bullets, and a half frozen companion. It was, in his opinion, a far better deal than he could have hoped for.


	2. Gavin

Gavin couldn’t ever remember being this cold. Even back in England, where it was cold and dreary plenty of the time, he’d always been in a warm, safe house with blankets to warm up under and his cat to force his hands under. Poor Lloyd. He had no idea if the apocalypse had actually spread to England, or even beyond Texas, but as far as he could tell he was trapped in a bloody loop of death and loss, so trying to think about England was probably for the worst.

Still, as he laid in the car, shivering and his teeth chattering behind a thick layer of duct tape, with his hands and feet losing feeling rapidly, he guessed he had nothing to lose. He wished he was back in England, faffing about with Dan, able to go home to his mum and dad and have able to give them a hug. He missed his family. He’d thought he had a makeshift one with the group – especially with Alice, who would smile and lean in to bat her eyes at him almost every day, who he swore wanted more from him. While she had been pretty, someone Gavin would normally want to bang, it was a little too much to worry about. Between not dying and making sure no one else died, getting his dick wet was pretty much the last thing on his mind. Zombies weren’t great wingmen, as it turned out.

Apparently not-dying hadn’t been enough, though. Liam had wanted him to be doing more, using sticks to fight off zombies that they ran into, and Gavin was not a fighter. He could do ranged, he thought. But seeing the rotting corpses up close – his stomach couldn’t handle it. According to Liam, who’d been the one to hold a gun to his head and threaten to shoot if Gavin hadn’t stripped, that wasn’t good enough.

The day had started like any other – far too early with him and Alice on watch, while the others slept on. Gavin asked her his million dollar questions, and she’d laughed at him and refused to answer any of them. That was a damn shame. It was easier to tell what kind of person you were if you’d take a million dollars but every time you spent the money you had a ten percent chance of losing all your clothes and that included everything in your pockets. Alice countered that money probably had no real value at this point. Gavin contemplated the value of a million bullets, or a million cans of food, but neither had quite the same ring to it, so, frustrated, he gave up and jumped at a bird taking off into the sky.

As the rest of the party woke up and rations were doled out, Gavin noticed that he was handed a can of cat food and almost vomited on principal. “You serious?”

Mike, the guy who was handing out the cans, shrugged. “Liam told me that’s what you got. Sorry, man.”

The label featured a fluffy white cat and bore the label “Fancy Feast: Tuna Feast.” Gavin could not imagine anything less like a feast – a small golden container and a horribly fishy taste. It was better than nothing, though, and he managed to choke down a few bites to try to calm his stomach. While he was used to the idea of being constantly hungry, he would still try to eat anything that was available to him in the hope that he could stop the pain in his gut.

Still, when he was cut himself for the third time as he used the lid of the can as a make-shift spoon, he threw the can to the ground and that is when Liam noticed.

“Gavin?” Liam asked, voice dangerous and smooth. “Is something wrong?”

Liam had been a football linebacker at the University the group hailed from – University of Texas in Arlington. He had a strong figure, full of muscles and well defined features in his face. In general, he would be handsome for a white muscle-head, Gavin had noted early on, but it was soon evident that he was not boyfriend material. His intelligence was cut by ruthlessness, allowing other groups to join them only to demand all their supplies and then kick them out. (Gavin still shuddered to remember a group led by a girl named Rebecca, who was traveling with her younger siblings. After Liam had gained their trust, he’d held a gun to one of the kids’ head, demanding they give them everything before shooting the kid in the shoulder anyway and leaving them.) He was charming, perfectly capable of acting nice when he wanted to, but far more likely to punch his way through a conflict.

Gavin wanted to leave the group, but there was really nowhere for him to go. He didn’t have a weapon or a skill that would allow him to survive. Any groups they encountered were usually mugged, and no one was especially trusting of someone who wanted to defect from their group. So when Liam asked in that quiet, poisonous tone, Gavin froze.

“Sorry, Gavin, did you not hear me?” Liam asked again.

“I, uh-” Gavin stumbled.

“Is there something wrong with the food?”

Gavin felt a flare of anger. “Well, it’s bloody cat food, isn’t it?”

Liam made a passive glance to the can at his feet. “It doesn’t look bloody.”

“You know what I meant. I’m not a cat! What’s the deal with giving me cat food!”

Liam looked at Gavin. “Oh? Is it possible that you’re ungrateful for us feeding you?”

“I’d be a hell of a lot more grateful if I had human food, asshole!”

Gavin heard a quiet murmur as he cursed at the leader of the group. He hadn’t realized that there was a small crowd gathering. The other seven people were all staring at him and Liam, probably waiting to see what Liam would do.

Liam, seeming to know that they had an audience, smiled easily. “Well, Gavin, the human food is reserved for people who can carry their own weight.” Gavin felt himself flush and opened his mouth to protest that he wasn’t being put in an area where he _could_ carry his weight, but Liam cut him off. “We’ve all got jobs, Gavin, and it’s hard to pick up your slack and your bitching. And that makes you a bitch. We don’t have any dog food, so I thought cat food would be appropriate.” Liam laughed at his own joke, and a few voices in the crowd joined in.

Gavin glanced around. “I’m trying, you prick, but I can’t do the things you keep asking me to!”

“Exactly.” Liam sighed and glanced around the group. “Which is why I want to take a vote.”

“A vote on what?” Gavin snapped.

“Keeping you in the group.” Another wave of sound rippled behind him – quiet murmurs that Gavin suddenly couldn’t hear. “Guys, we don’t need any dead weight in the zombie apocalypse. It especially doesn’t need to be in the form of a blathering idiot like this one, who isn’t grateful for the food we give him. We are strong enough that getting rid of someone is an option and I, personally, feel that this will help us in the long run. Gavin, do you have anything to say in response?”

He didn’t. For once in his life, Gavin couldn’t come up with any words. Yes, he’d wanted to leave the group. He didn’t want to be kicked out.

Liam smiled sharply at him. “I guess that’s a no. All in favor?”

Gavin squeezed his eyes shut, unwilling to look as he heard hands being raised. He felt a hand on his shoulder, though, and opened his eyes to see Liam directly in front of him.

“Gavin, here’s the deal,” Liam whispered. “Even if everyone wasn’t raising their hands, you’d have two options. The first one is that we get rid of you. That’s the plan right now. But you can make yourself useful, if you want.” Liam made a crude gesture, complete with a hip thrust.

_Death or sex slave._ The option rolled through his head for a second before he jerked away from Liam’s hand on his shoulder. “Fuck you,” Gavin choked out.

“Not quite the arrangement I was suggesting.” Liam sighed, as if it pained him to do this, and pulled a gun out from his back pocket. He spoke loudly enough to be heard by the whole crew, then. “Gavin, I’m going to have to ask you to give us back our clothes.”

“But these are –!” Gavin tried to protest. The end of the sentence would have been _my clothes!_ , but Liam cocked the gun and held it level with Gavin’s eyes.

Staring down a barrel of a gun was more terrifying than zombies, Gavin decided, especially if you knew the person with his finger on the trigger would not hesitate to kill you. In fact, Liam might still kill him if he took the clothes off. He wasn’t sure. But it would probably be better to do what he asked, and maybe survive another few minutes.

As horrible as the world was, Gavin did not want to die yet. Especially not because of a jock asshole with a superiority complex.

So he carefully pulled his t-shirt off, then reached down to pull his sweatpants off. At that point, Liam pressed the gun barrel to his stomach, and Liam’s free hand pulled his head up to make Gavin meet Liam’s eyes. It was only then that Gavin realized that the sexual slavery card might still be on the table – that Liam would force him to do something sexual and then kill him anyway. But at this point, he realized he had no choice.

A voice popped up from behind. “Hey, we said kick him out, not kill him.” That was Alice, Gavin thought for a moment. He was breathing too fast and wasn’t sure he would survive another hour, but in that second Alice was his savior. “If we kill him he might turn and then we’d have to deal with that mess.”

“This isn’t _The Walking Dead_ , I don’t think it works like that,” a male voice argued.

“Still, you don’t have to kill him,” Alice said. “Just leave him somewhere.”

Gavin’s pulse was still out of control, waiting for the shot that would end his life as Liam glanced over his shoulder. He raised his eyebrows slightly, gauging the audience that Gavin couldn’t see.

“Alright,” Liam said, back to an amicable tone of voice. “Ally, grab me some duct tape.” The gun was still digging into Gavin’s stomach, and tears threatened to spill at any moment. Crying in front of Liam would only prove his point, so he was determined to keep them in until this whole shit-show was over.

When Liam was handed duct tape, Gavin placed his wrists together in front only for them to be nudged back by the gun. “Behind,” Liam ordered. “Ally, hold the gun.” As she took the gun and kept it pressed to Gavin’s rib cage, as Liam wrapped the first layer of duct tape around his wrists, he found his voice.

“Just let me go,” Gavin said, mortified to hear a tremble in his voice. “I’ll leave! I won’t come back. I promise!” Ally just pressed the gun harder into his skin and her finger fluttered to rest near the trigger. _Probably a good time to shut up_ , Gavin’s brain warned him. Gavin had to agree, but it was difficult when Liam shifted his hands and caused them to pull at the wrong angle. He made a small noise of pain, and flinched away as the gun came up to his head.

“Ally, lemme get his mouth.” Liam came back to Gavin’s front, and Gavin barely had time to take a breath before Liam was taping all the way around his head, catching some of his longer hair in the loop. _Christ, this is uncomfortable._ He could feel his circulation being cut off to his hands, too.

“Okay, guys.” Liam pulled back to address the group as a whole. “We’ll take him back to the snow place. Shove him in a building or something. And then we’ll get going without the dead weight. Everyone pack up and get ready to move.”

And that was how Gavin found himself shoved in the back of a car, tape keeping his hands and feet stuck together and utterly unable to move, listening for the shuffling of a zombie to spell his death. That was, if the cold didn’t kill him first. Behind the duct tape, his teeth were chattering, and his whole body quaked in an attempt to keep himself alive. The only benefit for being left alone in the car was that he allowed himself to let out a couple sobs, letting himself cry for a few minutes in equal parts relief and terror.

The worst part about the cold was that after a while it just hurt. It burned in his arms and legs and was beginning to creep into his torso, and it fucking sucked. Gavin found himself wishing that Liam had just shot him, because that death would have been faster and it wouldn’t be so bloody cold.

_No_. Gavin had made it this far in the zombie apocalypse. He wasn’t about to give up now. Especially not because of that asshole Liam. Gavin would not be killed because of Liam or the weather. Zombies, he decided, would be how he died. There was some sort of honor in dying from the reason that the world was ending, right?

Gavin thought so anyway. So he gathered up the remainder of his strength, not sapped by cold or hunger, and tried to pull his bonds apart. It ended up being more of a belly flop, except he’d started on his belly, so maybe just a flop is how he’d describe it if anyone were watching. It made the car shake slightly, and the tape on his hands slipped a little bit. It tore hair out from his arm, but it _moved_.

With a renewed sense of hope, Gavin performed another flop, and another, taking care that he didn’t fall off the seat. The tape kept shifting, and the movement was helping him feel warmer, so he kept flopping until he heard a noise from behind him. A groan.

Gavin froze, his heart stopping in his chest and questions forming in his head. _That’s a zombie. Are zombies affected by cold? Is it slower than normal zombies? Do zombies know how cars work? Can zombies open doors?_ He’d never seen a zombie open a door before, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t. Right? He waited, holding his breath, listening for more noises. But none came, and so he tentatively shifted on his stomach to resume his flopping.

Unfortunately, stopping had only let the cold seep in more, and Gavin felt drained and stiff, not to mention tired. He knew that was probably hypothermia, and he shouldn’t sleep, but it was incredibly tempting.

_One more time,_ Gavin thought to himself. Mustering up the rest of his strength, he flopped again, and laid there panting after it was done, letting his forehead rest on the fake leather. _You can chill now_ . He chuckled quietly at his own pun, ready to rest for a moment. Logically, he knew that resting would just lead to him falling asleep, and falling asleep would lead to dying, but it was so _cold_ and really, he _would_ wake up soon –

That was when the door opened, a man with a dark beard and tattooed hands held a gun to his head, and his life changed – mostly in the sense that it was about to end and got a very sudden extension.

Geoff was his name, the man explained, and he wasn’t going to hurt Gavin. He peeled the duct tape off, and cut his bindings, and cursed at him when he didn’t move away from a zombie (seriously, that wasn’t Gavin’s fault; it was too cold to do anything). Geoff carried him away from the zombie and he was too warm because Gavin’s skin burned from where Geoff touched him.

Geoff did make him walk and carry a backpack, though, and all Gavin wanted to do was sleep. He relayed this to Geoff and the man frowned before walking along at a faster pace.

“Stay awake, Gavin,” Geoff commanded. “We’re following my trail out.”

“How long?” Gavin asked, trying to whine as little as possible with feet that were frozen solid and his hands pulled into the sweatshirt to try and maintain some body heat. His hands wrapped around the bag to keep it on his shoulders.

Geoff didn’t reply, just frowned even more and placed a hand on Gavin’s back. The contact surprised him and made Gavin stumble and he ended up with a face full of snow seconds later.

“Shit, Gavin, I’m fuckin- I’m sorry, dude!” Gavin replied with a groan muffled by snow as Geoff pulled at his shoulders.

“It’s cold,” Gavin said to the snow. “Does snow know it’s cold?”

Geoff paused. “Uh, I think snow doesn’t know anything. It’s inanimate.”

“Do zombies know they’re cold?” Gavin felt himself be manhandled up to a standing position as he asked the question.

Geoff dusted off the sweatshirt Gavin was borrowing and frowned. “I’d guess so. No, actually, probably not. I think they’re just hungry, really. Come on, we’re like five minutes away.”

_Why didn’t you tell me that before?_ Gavin asked Geoff silently before walking in the direction Geoff had directed. Gavin was actually not positive that Geoff was leading him towards warmth or safety. Geoff had claimed that the wind must have wipe out his footprints, so there was no evidence they were actually going the right way. And afterwards, Geoff had made no mention of safe houses or a camp, or of them even sticking together after Geoff made sure he was safe.

Still, Geoff had given him his sweatshirt and these jeans, which were cold and stiff with mud but still provided an element of protection. Meaner people, or people not looking for a friend, would probably not want to share their clothes and offer them food. Hell, people who didn’t want a friend might not have saved him in the first place. So sticking with Geoff was probably the best thing for now, anyway.

Gavin tripped again, this time on a rock, and his face didn’t catch on snow, but pine needles. His mouth tasted like dirt and he immediately spat out. When he looked up, Geoff didn’t look impressed.

“Were you looking at all?”

“Was thinking,” Gavin mumbled, feeling heat wash over his face and he sighed in relief. “Oh.” His hands, feet and legs started to tingle as feeling returned to them, and they quickly reached the point of pain. He relished every sensation, though, grateful he didn’t lose any appendages.

“Yeah, ‘oh,’ idiot.” Geoff didn’t seem to be angry, though. He looked more concerned than anything, if Gavin was reading his face correctly. “You wanna sit here and get warm? Or keep on going? There’s cabins around here, we can hole up and eat.”

Gavin didn’t really hear him. It didn’t seem important at this point. “I can sleep?”

Geoff gave another frown. Gavin didn’t like his frown; it made the dark bags under his blue eyes seem even bigger than they were. “Let’s get to a place I can defend, Gav. Too many trees, okay?”

Gavin groaned. “Do I have to get up?”

Geoff sighed and grabbed the sweatshirt hood, causing Gavin to choke as he was pulled up. “Oi!” He sputtered.

Geoff shot him a level glance. “I’m trying to save your life. I’d appreciate you not acting like a fucking child while I do it.”

“And I’d appreciate it if you understood I was dying! Today has been stressful enough, thank you very much!” Gavin knew this wasn’t fair – a part of his mind was shouting that Geoff was just doing something to help Gavin. But after being taped together, left to freeze, chased by a zombie with overalls, and now being choked by the person who was supposed to be saving him, he was just _tired_. “I just want to sleep!”

It was a whine, and he knew it, as Geoff grabbed at his floppy sleeve and pulled.

Gavin let himself zone out as he was pulled through the forest. He allowed himself to be pulled behind a tree as a few zombies roamed past here or there, but he wasn’t focused. Gavin blankly knew that this was how people died nowadays. If you’d survived long enough, it wasn’t the lack of food or the inability to run that killed you. It was inattentiveness; it was not paying attention to your surroundings. Often, it meant shock.

Was Gavin in shock?

He stopped and thought about it as Geoff tugged on his sleeve again. Probably, he decided. Gavin couldn’t explain to himself what was happening. He couldn’t think outside of his head. And even though Gavin knew that this could cost him his life, he couldn’t snap out of it.

_Wake up_ , Gavin tried to tell his own brain. _Wake up, please._

“Gav,” Geoff said, pulling Gavin into a wooden home. “Gav, what do you want?”

Gavin couldn’t reply to that, and just looked down at his feet. They hurt, he realized, and there was blood making his feet stick to the floor. He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it when words couldn’t come out.

“Gavin?” Geoff gently tapped his cheek. “Hey, Gav.”

Gavin quietly let himself fold to the floor, his back leaning up against a cabinet of some sort. The backpack made a sort of cushion around his back, and he slipped it off to feel the wood behind him. For some reason, that felt nicer.

Geoff seemed to recognize that something was wrong, and glanced up and down. “Well, there aren’t zombies here right now. I’m going to close up the house, okay? We can stay here as long as we need.” Geoff opened the backpack that Gavin had been carrying and pulled out a hideously orange sleeping bag. “I’m gonna put this on you, okay? It’ll be warmer. And I’ll get you food and water, too. Do you, uh…” Geoff trailed off before unzipping the bag he was carrying. Gavin heard the dull clank of cans hitting each other and Geoff pulled out a can. “Do you like chili?”

When Gavin didn’t respond, he put the can down and rummaged around a bit before pulling out a can opener. “Some people thought it was stupid to grab a can opener,” Geoff said. “But this way my knife can stay sharp and my cans get opened.” He gave a sheepish sort of smile, and Gavin could tell Geoff was trying to get him to respond, but he felt blank. So when Gavin didn’t respond, Geoff’s whole body sort of drooped. Geoff reached to grab the chili can and started to open it. The smell hit Gavin, and absently he knew that it smelled decent, meaning it probably tasted decadent compared to the cat food he’d eaten earlier.

Gavin must have responded in some way, because Geoff perked up and handed the open chili can over. “If you want to eat some, go ahead.” Geoff reached around to pull a bright pink water bottle from the side pocket of his bag. It was about three-fourths full of what looked like water. Gavin immediately latched onto it, grabbing before Geoff could even put it down.

“You want water?” Gavin had already opened and drunk a few sips before Geoff could finish the words, so Gavin was fairly certain he didn’t need to answer that. Even someone dumb enough to wander through a blizzard and save a stranger could tell that Gavin was thirsty. As he kept drinking, Geoff placed a gentle hand on his head, gently scratching Gavin’s hair.

Before the apocalypse, this would have been odd. Gavin couldn’t imagine being pet softly by a person who he barely knew, even one that had saved his life earlier in the day. Gavin had known Geoff for possibly two hours, but here Geoff was, comforting him after he’d almost died. It felt nicer than anything he’d experienced in months, so Gavin held his head very still to encourage Geoff to keep going.

“It’s okay,” Geoff murmured as Gavin froze. “You can finish it. We’ll get some more soon.”

Gavin shook his head, the stillness and comfort broken, and tried to speak again. This time, he was far more successful. “Thank you,” he managed to say, flexing his fingers as the remnants of cold were banished. It wasn’t enough, and he vaguely knew that thanking Geoff would probably need to be a longer process in order to equal what Geoff had done for him. Thankfully, Geoff seemed to understand that this was all Gavin could do for now.

“You’re welcome.” Geoff smoothed Gavin’s hair back before stepping away. “I’m going to make sure everything is all sealed up for the night. You get some rest.”

Gavin could barely keep is eyes open, but he made himself do an inventory check on his hands and feet. He gently pulled at each foot and toe, and made a pleased noise when he could feel all of them. With a happy sigh, he allowed himself to finally fall asleep to the sound of Geoff shuffling furniture around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of walking in the zombie apocalypse. It gets very boring writing walking scenes. If anyone has tips on how to make "and then he walked to here. and then he walked to there." more interesting, please let me know! I'd appreciate any and all help, since I'm still pretty new to writing stories.
> 
> Also sorry if this is popping up on your feeds twice! I'm still learning how to use the system and this was a hiccup.
> 
> <3 Emily


	3. Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slight warning for some violence in this chapter. I don't think it's graphic enough to warrant a tag, but it is the zombie apocalypse and there are zombies to be killed. Please let me know if you want me to tag it.

Jack was not sure if it was worse to keep walking around in his long sleeve shirt or be sunburned until he fried. In all honesty, neither option was desirable, and in fact both were rather miserable. At the moment his shirt was stuck to his body due to sweat, and he smelled like shit – sweaty shit, but he was pretty sure that was just a worse version of shit. Even the shirt that he had pulled over his head was sweat-soaked, and it was just protecting the back of his head.

Fuck being a redhead and in the desert.

Jack had wandered through the area about a day ago, grateful for the ability to see in all directions. Zombies also suffered from getting sand in their eyes, he realized, and that had allowed him to save a few bullets. He had quite a few bullets, and wasn’t really worried about that, but he also knew that finding more bullets to fit his .22 would be difficult. Saving them was the responsible thing to do. Zombies would die from running into cacti, too, so occasionally Jack had entertained himself by kiting them into the plants and watching them slowly become entangled.

But that excitement had quickly worn off, and Jack soon found himself turned around in the desert with no way to know which way was out. It didn’t matter much since he didn’t have a permanent place to stay. There was no reason to turn around at the beginning. That is, until the heat hit.

Even his backpack was sticking to his back, and it was possibly the most miserable he’d been since the world had turned upside down. The whole world felt covered in sweat. He knew from the previous night that at some point the temperature would drop drastically, to a point where he felt almost cool. At the moment, though, the world was like walking through fire. Jack’s shoes had been filled with sand from the moment he’d stepped into the desert, but his soles were still singed from when he’d had the seemingly brilliant idea of walking around barefoot.

Jack had found a house in the desert, but it was so far removed from anything that he had used it only as protection from the zombies that night. He wanted to find a home to sort of settle down in, use as a base and set up a life for himself. Theoretically, Jack would like to find other people to live with him, but he knew that it could come later. Right now, he’d need to find a way out of the godforsaken desert, and he couldn’t see one at the moment. The desert was blindingly bright, and he wasn’t sure he could see much of anything beyond the cacti and yucca plants he kept passing.

Jack grimaced as he pulled a piece of yucca fruit off of the plant. A while back, he’d heard from a woman that this little fruit had saved her life in the desert. Jack appreciated that the yucca gave him something to rehydrate with. He did not appreciate the taste. It was bitter and hard, sort of like a raw potato, and the aftertaste was almost worse than being thirsty in the first place. After passing one or two adventurer corpses in the desert, though, he knew not to wait until it was too late. 

And yes, Jack thought, this was sort of an adventure – a horrific adventure where he had a high chance of dying, but an adventure nonetheless. And really, wasn’t this the sort of thing he’d craved when he was younger, the reason for all his video game addictions? He’d grown up in the city, and even though he’d wanted to go off and study engineering, Jack had stayed to work in his family’s bakery.  _ Just for a year or two, _ his mother had asked.

But Jack had fallen in love with kneading bread and icing cupcakes, as much as it made his friends from high school laugh. (They weren’t laughing when Jack easily beat them in arm wrestling contests. People should not mess with bread making muscles.) He found that making sure the checkbook was balanced and that ensuring the business turned a profit was its own challenge. So the Patillo Family Bakery and Coffee Shop became his home and his job. He’d even become the lead baker after his father decided to retire. It became a sort of community hot spot, his little café located under his personal floor. Students came and went, drinking excessive amounts of caffeine and complaining about homework. Little old ladies ordered tea and muffins and gossiped about their friends. Mothers and the occasional father asked for birthday cakes for their children. Others popped in and out, often enough that Jack usually knew what to expect when a familiar face came through the door. Since it was a Tuesday and supposed to relatively uneventful, he had been working alone when the apocalypse hit.

Well, hit was a strong word. Word started to trickle in as soon as he opened. The weather had been acting oddly, but Jack just chalked that up to global warming. Emily Trainer, a local lawyer, was the person who said something first, as she picked up her daily latte.

“Apparently there’s some new disease that hit,” she said, just striking up conversation as Jack bustled around. Since there was no one else in the store, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to talk a little.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said, sighing a little. “They found it in Dallas. This guy just went crazy, started attacking someone. Apparently there was biting.”

Jack made a face as he added steamed milk to Emily’s coffee. “Gross. Sounds like a vampire. Was he afraid of the sun, too?”

Emily laughed. “No, it happened last night. They’re thinking it’s some kind of parasite. So more like a zombie, maybe?”

Jack shook his head. “It’s probably like that bath salts thing that happened in Florida. Probably nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah,” Emily said, taking a sip of her coffee and humming quietly. “God, Jack, your drinks are  _ heavenly _ . Starbucks doesn’t compare.” She handed over a twenty dollar bill and waved her hand as he went to get her change. “Keep it. Consider it hope that I won’t have to work the Tuckermann case and a thank you. I know you bump me up a drink size some days.” With a wink, she turned on her heel and walked away.

Later, people trickled in and ordered like usual, except for a tall man with blond hair Jack had never seen before.

“Hi, welcome,” Jack said, smiling for a second before letting it fall off his face. The man’s eyes looked crazed – he was glancing everywhere and nowhere all at once. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, man, I…” The man trailed off, looking up and down the bread isle. “I’m hungry.”

Jack frowned. “All right. Do you want some bread?”

The man tilted his head. “No… no.” His head tilted the other way. “No. I want… I want meat.”

Jack did not like the way this was going. This man was not acting normally, and he just wanted him out of the store, customers be damned. So even though he had bacon and ham reserved for his breakfast sandwiches, he said, “Sorry, buddy, we don’t sell meat here.” The man nodded slowly and walked slowly out the door. A few minutes later, sirens tore down the street. 

The mood in the shop changed after that. People came in looking a little more harried than usual, some explaining that they’d seen people acting strangely or heard a news report talking about this new disease, but didn’t go into much detail. One woman with spiky magenta hair came in shrieking about the end of the world and ordered five loaves of bread, which was just silly in Jack’s opinion. If it was the end of the world, bread was nice and all, but in the Texas heat there would be mold on the bread in a few days.

Regardless, Jack had a normal day, money-wise, and he closed the shop to start kneading more dough for fresh kolaches tomorrow. As the sun set and he set the dough next to the oven, he heard a thump coming from outside. Someone was pressed up against the glass to the bakery, their face shadowed by the sunset. They would look normal, but there was something about their stance that made Jack anxious. The person was slouched. In fact, it looked like they were using as few muscles as possible to remain standing, but their hand was loosely pressed against the glass. They reminded Jack of the man he’d seen earlier.

“We’re closed!” Jack called out. There was another thump. The person’s hand was curled up slightly, hitting the glass again. “Hey, jackass! We’re closed!” The thumping continued, so Jack leaned down to grab his handgun and tucked it into his back pocket. The gun was usually used to dissuade the occasional robber, but it would work for this as well. He wasn’t really prepared to use it, since the guy didn’t really look dangerous. Instead, due to Texas being a “Stand Your Ground” state, he could use it to threaten the guy off.

“Dude,” Jack said, coming up close to the window. Jack paused, though, when he saw that the person was a young woman. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. “The sign says we’re closed. I’m telling you we’re closed. Leave before I call the cops.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Jack’s world exploded into glass shards. He fell to his back with a shout, gasping as the wind was knocked out of his lungs. The girl snarled as she lunged through the now-open window. She didn’t seem to care as her skin caught on the glass and tore, and no blood spilled out of her cuts.

_ The fuck? _ Jack thought as he tried to reach behind him and grab the gun. The girl fell on top of him and started clawing with nails that seemed to be abnormally thick and sharp. Jack gave a shove and pushed the girl off of him, still trying to grab his gun. He finally got a good hold on it and fired three times into the girl’s stomach. She stumbled and fell to the floor.

Jack took a second to catch his breath. Then, “What the  _ fuck _ ?” The mess on the floor consisted of shattered glass, the girl’s limp body, and blood. Blood? Was he bleeding?

In a second, when more blood dripped down from his forehead and he felt a stinging sensation – his face hurt. He was bleeding. “Fuck!” he swore again, jogging back to behind the counter to grab a cloth. After pressing it to his face, Jack realized he should probably call the police, and dialed 911.

The phone rang in his ear as he stared out his now broken window. Would insurance pay for a super-strong girl breaking his storefront? It was supposed to be covered for robbers and other thugs, but this wasn’t a robber? And while he’d done it in self-defense, he’d killed that woman. Would he be in trouble? Should he even call the police?

Now that was stupid thinking. Yes, Jack should let the police know. The problem was that they didn’t answer. There was a telltale click of an electronic voice coming on to say “Please hang up and try again.”

Bewildered, Jack looked at the face of his phone to see he’d hung up. He stood for a second before punching in the number again, only for the electronic voice to tell him to hang up again. Jack’s fingers hovered above the numbers again, his anxiety rising, when he heard the shifting of broken glass. He looked up and nearly screamed.

The girl was back on her feet, groaning again and her arms stretched out to grab at him. Instinctively Jack raised his gun to aim at the girl again. Four shots later she was down again. “What the  _ actual fuck _ ?” Jack screamed before remembering Emily’s words from earlier.  _ The disease, _ he thought for a second.  _ Emily said zombies. _

Jack laughed hysterically. Zombies? His mind immediately went to dismiss the idea but the evidence stopped him. This girl had broken in through a heavyweight glass, with her thick sharp nails. She hadn’t said anything, just groaned. She hadn’t wanted money or food; she’d just gone to attack him. And, probably most damning, she had gotten up after three bullets and stood for four more.

_ Stop and think _ , Jack instructed himself.  _ Just think. If she’s a zombie – a zombie? – then you cut her head off. If she’s not a zombie, cutting her head off will still kill her. It’s not like she can be more dead, right? _

Right. He grabbed the knife he’d been using to chop fruit for the kolaches and went to go chop off the girl’s neck. The act of cutting through a human was far more difficult in real life than video games. The girl wasn’t actively bleeding, which was frankly weird, but there was just so much skin and muscle, and his knife wasn’t very efficient. Maybe a bread knife would have been easier to use – a serrated edge to saw through the meat. When he reached the vertebrae, he almost threw up.

_ Jesus, _ Jack thought before just shoving the knife into her throat. If she wanted to get up after that, she could feel free to come find him. Between this and the police not answering, something major was wrong. And, if this was the zombie apocalypse, he needed to gather supplies. Food, guns, water, a few changes of clothes…

Jack almost ran into a tree from being lost in thought, too busy remembering how he’d started out to notice that he’d made his way out of the desert. Shade felt heavenly surrounding his skin, and the sensation of the sweat cooling made him feel sticky but infinitely happier. Finding a body of water would be useful at some point. His water bottle had been emptied a while ago, and he’d love to drink something other than yucca plants. 

Still, Jack looked around the forest skeptically. There were so many trees, so many places for zombies to hide. The wood would be helpful for building things, assuming he could figure out how to make something like an axe or bow and arrow.  _ That would be helpful _ , he mused.  _ I wouldn’t have to worry about ammunition. _

So he walked down a slight hill, skirting the difference between the desert and the forest to have the shade of the trees along with the security of being able to see far in front of him. Nothing particularly eventful was happening. There was a zombie far into the desert, and he heard some rustling in the bushes up at the top of the hill. As long as he knew where the danger was, and kept his gun up, Jack figured he could take whatever came at him. He had to be able to work alone, since everyone so far had been too suspicious to do anything other than let him tag along for a few nights. Along the way he’d bumped into a few colonies that invited him to stay with them, but Jack had always declined. The groups had seemed to be a stiff breeze away from dissipating, and Jack didn’t really want to be a part of the fallout.

So Jack continued, kicking a stone along the path until he saw a house looming in the distance. There were a few zombies a ways beyond the area, but Jack figured it would be a good place to settle and possibly stay for the night. In fact, it might make a good longer-term base. That would be dependent on how near close the site was to water, but for now it would work. Jack hoisted the pack further up his shoulders and set off, a renewed sense of vigor in his step now that he had a tangible goal.

The house was a bit further in the desert area than the forest, which would be fine for defending, Jack thought, even if it meant a return to the heat. It was two stories and had stairs on the outside. That was an interesting architecture choice, unlike anything he’d seen in a house before. It would be convenient for the zombies, unfortunately. Jack could use it as a lookout perch, he supposed. Maybe the house would have construction tools and he could destroy the steps so zombies couldn’t climb up easily. Or maybe it was too much to fix and turn into a home, but for a night, it would certainly work.

Jack reached the stairs and quietly walked up. It would be nice to put his backpack down, but he knew that zombies could be stuck inside the houses and would love nothing more than to tear him to pieces and eat him. Of course, he needed to open the door first, and it was definitely locked. So Jack sighed and turned to the window just to the left of the door, and fired a shot into the glass.

It shattered, taking his mind back to his first zombie experience for a moment before he shook the memory away. Jack took his shirt from around his head and covered his hands, hoping to avoid cutting himself as he climbed inside. There did not appear to be any zombies, at least on this floor, but he prepared himself to aim the gun at any moment.

There was a small wooden table in front of him, and a refrigerator and oven to his right. To his left, there were some stairs at lead down. A sky light was the only source of light in the house, which made sense since electricity had stopped being produced a long time ago. Everything was coated in a fine layer of dust. 

Jack slipped his backpack off and went to grab the table. He leaned it up against the now broken window, creating a barrier between the house and the world. The silence of an abandoned house filled his lungs as he breathed in, and prepared to explore.

It would be prudent, he realized to explore the downstairs and make absolutely sure that there were no zombies. He quickly made his way over to the stairs and froze, taking in three things simultaneously.

One: There was someone at the bottom.

Two: That person was not a zombie – they had pale pink skin, looking like they were recovering from a sunburn; zombies were always that sickly gray-green.

Three: That person was holding a gun at him, and Jack was aiming right back.

The two people ( _ Men, _ Jack thought,  _ the person is a man, he’s got a scruffy beard, he’s a guy _ ) stared at each other for a second, neither moving. 

Jack still felt obligated to speak, and said the first thing that popped into his head. “I have the high ground, Anakin.”

_ You are a fucking idiot _ .

The man on the first floor seemed to agree. “Are you… serious?” He let out a laugh of disbelief. “You break into my house, aim a gun at me, and quote the worst  _ Star Wars _ movie in existence?”

Jack shrugged. “Hey, it was better than one or two. I’d give a lot to see it right now.”

The man seemed to think about that for a moment before replying. “Fair enough. Still, this is my house, and I’d appreciate it if you left.”

“Your house?” Jack resisted the urge to look away and check to see if he’d remembered correctly. “Everything in here is dusty. It’s abandoned, not your house.” The man at the bottom of the stairs said something under his breath. “Sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

“I said, ‘fuck,’” the man replied. Jack huffed out a laugh.

“Maybe we can work something out,” Jack said. “We can split the house. You can have the downstairs if you want. I’ll keep the upstairs. No one has to get hurt.”

The man at the bottom of the stairs frowned. “I’d rather go 50-50 on whatever we find.”

While that was technically fairer, Jack couldn’t see anything downstairs that would contain anything of use. Having the stove and refrigerator meant he had something to work with, at least. Jack had no allegiance to the man at the bottom of the stairs, so splitting his supplies was not high on his list of priorities.

Still, from his experiences he’d found that the less he had to deal with humans, the better. “That’s fine but only if we look together, so no one can hide if they find something good.”

The man nodded. “Fine. Guns down on three? One, two…”

“Three,” Jack said, and both of them clicked their safety on. Jack came down the stairs, tucking his gun into the holster attached to his jeans. “I’m Jack.”

“I’m R-” The man cut himself off. “I’m the Vagabond.”

Jack stopped on the step. “Are you serious?” The man – the Vagabond? – nodded. “Was that your ninth grade username or what?” Jack could see the Vagabond’s facial features. He had blond hair and bright blue eyes, and those eyes had what looked to be grease surrounding them. Why someone would try to hide their face, Jack had no clue. Zombies didn’t exactly use facial recognition software. For some reason the Vagabond’s face made him think of cinnamon raisin bread, Diet Coke, and I-really-shouldn’t-but-a-muffin-please. An order from his bakery, Jack thought.

“Tenth grade, actually.” The Vagabond (god, what a stupid name) dragged the last syllable out as he looked at Jack’s face. “Wait.” He seemed to have the same moment of realization as Jack did. “You’re Jack? Last name Patillo?”

Jack felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up and didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “You used to order raisin bread.”

The Vagabond chuckled. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He turned around to face a door that Jack hadn’t quite registered before. “I try out my new identity, ready to terrify zombies into submission, and I run into a guy who knows I like raisin bread. God  _ damn _ it.”

Jack finished descending the stairs and let himself stare. The Vagabond certainly sounded sarcastic, so hopefully he wasn’t dealing with someone who actually thought zombies were scared of a painted on mask. As the Vagabond sighed and turned back to face Jack, Jack decided to ask the obvious. “What’s your real name?” Jack asked.

The Vagabond had the decency to blush, at least, and his voice went up half a pitch. “Ryan. Ryan Haywood. Uh, your bread was really good.”

Jack let his lips quirk into a smile. “Thanks. I don’t have any on me, though.”

“Damn,” Ryan sighed. “If I got you ingredients would you make some?”

“You’d need to build me a temperature controlled fire,” Jack said, “but if you did I’d be happy to. Is there anything down here?”

Ryan shook his head. “Not as far as I can see. Old couch cushions,” he motioned to a lump to the back of the house, “and this closet.” Ryan stepped over to the closet and opened it, only to grimace. Jack stood up on his tiptoes to see if anything was there.

A gun safe loomed in the corner, locked and taunting him with its huge lock and cast iron body.

“We’re not getting that open any time soon,” Jack said. Ryan nodded and closed the door to the room.

“Yeah, down here’s useless.” Ryan gently closed the door, and moved to go upstairs. Jack followed closely behind. “I guess someone could use it as a closet. But I’m pretty confused,” he said, trailing off. Jack made a noise to indicate his curiosity. “How would someone live here? There’re no rooms. I know open floor plans are in right now, but to this extent?”

Jack shrugged. “I guess so.” Ryan had looked back to see Jack’s reaction, and Ryan’s face fell a little at Jack’s lackluster response. “Oh! Was that a joke?”

“It was… a very bad joke,” Ryan said. “It’s been a little while.”

“Hey, I’ll take anything where the punchline isn’t something trying to eat me.” Jack went to open up the cabinets and found some bowls and cooking pots, obviously used. Cooking something would be nice, he realized. A hot meal from the cans in his pack would be great. “Have you been around here for long? Is there water nearby?”

“About a mile walk into the forest, uphill from here,” Ryan explained. “I came from that direction. It’s a lake, but the water’s pretty clear.” Ryan pulled a face. “It’s probably got lots of diseases, and tastes horrible.”

“But it’s water.” Jack looked around the house, with hope welling up in his chest. “Its water and we can see if zombies are coming up.” He turned and clasped Ryan on the shoulder. “Ryan. It’s shelter with water nearby.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “I mean, are you looking to stay here?”

“Yes!” Jack said, causing Ryan to jump a bit from the volume. “It’d be nice to just have a place to call home again. There’re probably animals in the forest, we could hunt –”

Ryan raised his hands into the air. “We?”

Jack’s mind, which had just been full of ideas on how to make the place more zombie-proof, defense systems they could install, and food and water sources, suddenly shut down. Of course, Ryan had only been looking for a place to loot. He wasn’t necessarily looking for a place to settle down. The house was small anyways, and maybe he wasn’t interested in sharing with a stranger.

“I, uh… Sorry.” Jack looked away from Ryan. “Got ahead of myself.”

“No, I would –” It seemed that both of them lost their ability to speak for a moment until Ryan found his words. “It’d be nice to have someone watching my back. And I’d watch yours, too, of course!” Ryan looked nervous.

Jack slowly let a smile creep onto his face and he stuck his hand out. “Mr. Haywood. Would you move in with me?”

Ryan matched his smile and grasped his hand. “Mr. Patillo, it’s not even the end of the first date yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone enjoyed the chapter! Emily's question of the week: are all the characters different enough? I struggle sometimes with characterization. These guys all have strong personalities and I want them to shine through, not be very similar.
> 
> Thank you to everyone reading! I love you all.  
> <3, Emily

**Author's Note:**

> When I was just a reader, I always read that titles and summaries were the hardest part and I laughed. I'm sorry for laughing. It's hard.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Comments and kudos are always appreciated. This is going to be my first multichaptered work, so thanks for coming on this journey with me!
> 
> <3, Emily


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